Intel's 'Personal Server': The Handheld Killer?

markbaard writes "Intel is developing a wireless, pocket-sized personal server that may replace laptops and PDAs altogether. The 'personal server,' which is being developed at Intel Research by ubiquitous computing wizard Roy Want, is the size of a deck of cards, half the weight of an iPaq, and has no i/o, no screen, and no peripherals. The device never leaves its user's pocket or handbag. Pictures of the personal server and the story are at baard.com."

Comments

Probably won't replace handhelds...

[juhaz]

I see this more like addition, or update (if it's done right, if it's NOT done right I see it as paperweight), than replacement.

Sure, it would come handy to automatically have your portable computing device wirelessly "hijack" vastly superior input and output capabilities of bigger computer whenever you're in position to use one, but I'm not convinced web server is good enough for GUI of such device.

And it would be neat for it to still have screen and input device of its own (they would be turned off for power saving most of the time), for use where there just are no desktop systems for borrowing, in such situation, this system is 100% useless.

is replace a misnomer?

[whiteranger99x]

Intel is developing wireless, pocket-sized personal server that may replace laptops and PDAs altogether.

The personal server mounts on any PC that can recognize wireless devices: "Any computer becomes your computer," said Want.

Ok, I'm a little confused, are they saying that this will replace laptops and PDAs altogether or are they saying that this is merely a more flexible means of storage that can be accessed from other PCs or PDAs?

Re:is replace a misnomer?

[zbuffered]

This is just a hard disk on a radio link

no no no, this is a server on a radio (wireless) link. It won't replace your PDA, but rather change future PDAs, which will be designed with this in mind. If you don't have to worry about storing data in your PDA, but only viewing and manipulating data, it changes the makeup of your PDA. You might even have your "PDA" just be a dumb terminal with the 'personal server' doing the actual work.

Also they talk about integrating cellphones in it, so that you can have a bluetooth earpiece and your "phone" would be in your backpack or wherever. Although I guess you'd still need your "pda" (dumb terminal or whatever) to dial the number, or make better voice recognition software so that you could dial without buttons. Or put buttons on the server or...

I'm excited about this.

Wardriving in the subway!

[exhilaration]

Let's see how long it takes our enterprising youngsters to crack the security on these things! If they become ubiquitous, then the average user will use them to transport data of great value; after all, what better place for ALL your e-mail, and ALL your documents that in your pocket? Imagine being able to break into one of those things from a laptop - or perhaps another unit reprogrammed to attach to all nearby units and grab anything available.

Sounds like fun!!!!!

Security

[Ghetto_D]

What kind of security features/ecryption would be implemented on this device? There have been enough flaws oncovered with WEP that this sounds like a bad idea to me. ANY computer with 802.11 access being able to connect to my portable hard drive? And how would I know since there isn't even a display?

Nice idea, but what about this...

[pr0ntab]

Looks like a pen. Writes like a pen.

But it's not a pen. It contains 256 MB (or so) of flash, which is shared via bluetooth. A 10cm high gain antenna is hidden within the length of the pen itself, and powered by a single AAA battery. Walk by an enabled PC, optionally type in a password, and all your documents, your keyring, etc. are available.
Finally, as an added bonus, when you write on paper (or anything for that matter), you can choose to record your scribbles on the flash drive. Tiny gyroscopic sensors determine the motion of the pen across the page, and a pressure sensor determines whether the pen is against a writing surface. Each time you expose the ball point head it creates a new file, and when you retract it, it closes it. You can tell which file is which by the timestamps.

THAT would kick ass. And as embedded logic gets more powerful, you could have a personal web/email/jabber server running in there too.
A wireless iPod sounds nifty, but where's the innovation people?

Sounds like Roaming Profiles meet "next big thing"

[default luser]

Except you set it up once and can use it anywhere.

ANYWHERE.

Desktop, mobile, PDA, Cell phone, you name it. You're customized and ready to go, your OS and programs follow you ( The simpler ones run on the Xscale processor, the wireless link is just for shared data and I0 / screen updates, the more complex platforms get streamed boot data then program data, like your desktop )

We've been bitching at Intel for years for not making things portable enough, instead concentrating on bigger, hotter power hungry desktop chips.

Now Intel looks to be making a move to make everyone's standard data server run on a capable but not overkill Xscale.

Sure, there are some specialized things it can't process. Want to play a game? Mosey over to the desktop, your Xscale will stream the game files over in a few seconds, and while you play, fully configured with your key. Want to crunch a new movie into Divx or your favorite video codec? Your desktop will encode it and download it to the server in real time. Your desktop probably won't even have a hard disk, everything including the OS should be streamed from your handheld server.

* The key point here is this can be used as a seamless virtual session device ( ala Citrix ) plus fileserver plus desktop companion. Remote GUI sessions have always had problems catching on because the software is expensive and they require solid bandwidth. This has neither problem, and does more, so it's not dedicated hardware you're plunking down for. The battery life could be better, true, but for first generation >4 hours is impressive.

The main significance

[Lord_Dweomer]

The main significance that I see with a system such as this, where its use is merely to store data to be read/modified by other devices is that since now we can store this part of the computer, imagine how much power you could suddenly cram into a "handheld" device. Now I think we will see a small breakaway from that concept and into another concept which I feel will bridge the gap between handheld users and wearable users. Slowly we are seeing the modular wearable computer form. If all you need to hold in your hand is a screen/speakers/input device, suddenly you are working with significantly more space to play with if you remove the processor and HD and memory to a wireless unit stored in lets say.....a backpack.....or a purse....or a briefcase........or a jacket pocket. We can't always just move to smaller devices, sometimes we need to split them up, and then individually shrink the components, and this is a good step towards doing just that.

Network While You're Networking ;)

[Taliesan999]

Makes for a whole bunch of interesting possibilites...

How long before someone develops a piece of software that lets you swap files with other such devices in the area automatically, maybe even search for specific files on other's shares?

Turn up to a lecture and just by being there you get a copy of the audio and notes streamed to your personal server.

Add an access mechanism to a television/home entertainment system. Boom, instant portable TIVO!

What's wrong with this picture?

[Animats]

Let me get this straight. I'm supposed to carry around this little box with all my data on it so that when I get somewhere that has a keyboard and screen and knows how to talk to this box, I can log in and access my data.

What's wrong with this picture? Why do I need to carry around this box? Why do I want to carry around data? That's what the Internet is for.

Remember Java-enabled jewelry with onboard crypto? The RSA "fob" ID device? Dallas Semiconductor buttons? Same functional capabilities, less to carry. All you really need is an ID device.

Ubiquitous computing looks more like "hurry up and find something that wastes compute power before we have to have another layoff". They need some better ideas over there.